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I found a snake skin shed going into a hole in the mortar on

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I found a snake skin shed going into a hole in the mortar on a brick house. There are concrete blocks behind the brick outside. I believe it is a chicken snake. My wife wants me to plug hole. Any suggestions.

Hi. Welcome to Just Answer.It may just be that the snake used the hole to help shed his skin. If you want it is easy to make a trap for the snake. All you need is a wood frame (old produce box works) and some chicken wire. Tie the chicken wire to the box using some bailing wire and leave a hole big enough for the snake to get in but just barely. Place a chick in the box for bait and set the box near the hole. The snake will go into the box and eat the chick and wont be able to get out because of the bulge. You can then relocate the snake somewhere far away from your place. If you want to plug the hole just get a cheap bag of post hole concrete (less than 3 bucks at Home Depot) and mix up enough to plug it up. It sets pretty fast less than 20 minuets). Please let me know if you need anything else. Best, Smitty

The easiest way to determine if the snake is in there is to bait it with the food it likes the best. If it senses a live chick outside the hole it will come out after dark to get it. Chicken snakes are nocturnal. You will not see it during the day. I understand your wife will freak out if it is inside the house, but the block wall should prevent that from happening. If you block its exit point it may go looking for another way out and it is then that it may end up inside the house. Best solution is to live trap it. Then you can show the wife that it is definitely not in the house.

An agile climber, gray rat snakes are at home from the ground to the tree tops in many types of hardwood forest and cypress stands, along tree-lined streams and fields, and even barns and sheds in close proximity to people. Within its range, almost any environment rich in rodents, and vertical escape options, proves a suitable habitat for the gray rat snake. As scent-hunters these powerful constrictors feed primarily on rodents, birds, and their eggs as adults, while neonates and juveniles prefer a diet of frogs and lizards. When startled, this species, like other rat snakes, stops and remains motionless with its body held in a series of wave-like kinks. The gray rat snake will defend itself by raising its head and bluffing a strike. If handled, these snakes will musk a victim by releasing the foul-smelling contents of their cloaca, and will bite if necessary. However, the gray rat snake is less likely to bite than other members of its species, and wounds from a bite rarely require more than a bandage. Breeding takes place from April to July. Females deposit 5 to 27 eggs around mid-summer, and the 10" to 12" (25-30 cm) hatchlings usually emerge in September.

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